


Don't Mind My Messy Parlour

by Ravvi



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Aftercare, Asphyxiation, Biting, Bondage, Forced Pregnancy, Giant Spiders, Kidnapping, Other, Oviposition, Paralysis, Size Kink, Smoking, Underswap Muffet, Underswap Papyrus, because why not??, copulation plug, depictions of nicotine cravings, geddit? its a ship name for US pap and Muffet, honeymuffin, non-con, spine lacing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-09-26 23:38:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9931220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravvi/pseuds/Ravvi
Summary: In which Muffet wants Stretch's help with something.





	1. Something's Not Right...

“I need you to help me with something, dearie.”

Stretch looked up from his bottle of honey, then flinched backward in surprise when he saw Muffet’s blue-skinned, angular face just inches from his own.

“Uh-“ Stretch’s mind ground to a halt as Muffet leaned forward and casually rested her elbows on the bar. Her small, pert breasts sat very nicely in the loose top she wore, and her position pulled the fabric across them so tightly that-

Stretch jerked his gaze upward the second he realized he was staring, fixing his eyes guiltily on Muffet’s face instead. She smiled at him widely, with a knowing expression that suggested she wasn’t displeased by his attention. Stretch tentatively smiled back, suddenly certain that she was standing that way on purpose.

“It’s very easy,” she promised, blinking her lower, then upper sets of eyes in a slow, hypnotic circle. “It might not even take very long. Pretty please?”

“Uh-“ _Real smart Stretch, you sound super cool right now_ , “Um, yeah! Sure, Muff, anything you want,” Stretch agreed, pushing his honey aside. Maybe it was because he was a bit buzzed, maybe it was because he had long held some faint, whimsical feelings for the spider barkeep, but Stretch was in an extremely helpful mood. 

“Anything?” Muffet’s amber eyes looked almost hungry as she leaned forward and reached out to softly brush the line of his jaw with her free set of hands. Stretch found himself staring incoherently at Muffet’s full, blue lips, mind locking up as he tried to decide whether she wanted him to kiss _her_ or if she was going to kiss _him_ -

Stretch’s barstool slipped out from under him and he yelped, catching himself with a loud thump just before he hit his chin on the bar. His cheekbones flared brilliant orange, and he pushed himself back up with as much dignity as he could salvage. From somewhere behind him, he heard a muffled snort from one of Muffet's other patrons. His blush deepened, and he was suddenly VERY thankful that the bar was almost empty tonight.

“Ahuhuhuhu” Muffet giggled, then pushed back and sauntered to the door behind the bar, hips swinging slowly with each step. “Tend the house,” she called to the handful of tiny spider monsters scurrying back and forth from the kitchen. They turned and gave her a brief salute before hurrying along to their tasks.

“Well sweetie?” she called, holding the door. Stretch gulped, stood, and hurried to follow her.

“Don’t mind the mess, I’ve been a bit indisposed,” she called. “Be a dear and close the door?”

Stretch hesitated just inside the threshold of the room, unease slowly smothering his hopeful lust. Muffet hadn’t been kidding about the mess. In stark contrast to the spotless bar and restaurant out front, the room was a musty labyrinth of freshly-spun webs, with bits of frilly clothing, china dishes, and scraps of pastries all caught up in the sticky tangle. It was so dim that Stretch couldn’t quite make out the ceiling, and a sweet, cloying odor hung in the air that reminded him of the way Muffet’s cider smelled after it had sat out for too long.

“It’s back here, come closer,” the spider barkeep called from somewhere deeper in the room. Her voice was oddly muffled, as though the webbing were swallowing up the sound. Despite that, there was a hungry edge to it that Stretch hadn’t noticed before. Normally, he was very good at reading people, but he’d been…distracted. Now that Muffet’s cleavage wasn’t all but pressed to his face, he was slowly realizing just how uncomfortably unusual this all was.

“I…uh, sorry Muffet. On second thought I-“ Stretch whirled around as a section of web twitched and the door slammed shut. Immediately, he grabbed the handle and tried to twist it open. It broke off in his hand. 

“Muffet, let me out. I don’t-“ Stretch began with a low, threatening tone, then broke off with a splutter when something hot and sticky poured over his head. He ducked out of the way, swiping the liquid from his eyes, then gasped as a thin strand of web drew itself tightly through his soul.

“Agh-“ he grunted, straining against the magic for a moment before it suddenly gave and he staggered forward a step. A second strand immediately took its place, and he pressed a hand to his chest in disbelief, trying to process what had just happened. Purple?! Muffet had made him PURPLE?!

“Now, now dearie,” came Muffet’s voice from somewhere above him. Stretch snapped his face upward, a ring of bones forming around his hand. He tried to step backward, then stumbled and fell hard on his side when his shoes caught in the sticky web underfoot.

“You promised you would help me.”

“OW!” Stretch yelped as a sharp, stabbing pain shot through his left shoulder. He blindly flung his attacks outward, looking around wildly. He only caught a glimpse of Muffet’s retreating face as she disappeared into the shadowy ceiling before he lost sight of her again. Shaking, Stretch felt his shoulder with his free hand, then blanched when the tips of his phalanges came back painted with marrow and orange magic. She…she bit him?!

“Muffet, what the fuck?!” he shouted, voice shrill with fear. Gasping, he tried to flip over onto his front, grunting with frustration when the webbing clung to his hands and jacket. It quickly pinned his arms to his sides, making his movements heavy and awkward as he struggled against both the physical webbing, and the strand clinging to his soul. After a second, he realized with horror that it wasn’t just the webbing that was slowing him down.

“You…you p-poisoned…me?” Stretch gasped, feeling his bones grow heavier and heavier as the poison spread. Shit, Muffet was insane, he had to get out of here before…

“Nngh-“ Stretch whimpered as his legs gave out, dropping him face-first into a sticky mat. It covered his eyes, pressed into his nasal cavity and clung to his teeth, making it hard to breathe and impossible to see. Terrified, he fought to lift his arms, wiggle his legs, do something, ANYTHING. His body only responded with disjointed, jerky twitches, leaving him helplessly entangled as Muffet descend from the ceiling and crawled over to him with predatory grace. Carefully, she lifted his head and pulled the webbing away from his face.

“Don’t be scared, sweetheart. I said this would be easy,” she said softly, placing a small kiss on his forehead. Tenderly, she plucked Stretch’s limp, paralyzed body from the webbing, then dragged him upward into the shadowy ceiling. “Just relax, it will be over soon.”


	2. Think of England

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Stretch helps Muffet with something.

“Hnngh…n-no…,” Stretch slurred, unable to resist as Muffet pulled him onto a tightly-woven sheet of webbing.  It dipped a little under his weight like a silken hammock, bobbing gently when Muffet turned him face up and reached for the hem of his hoodie. 

“NO!” Stretch cried, eyelights flashing orange as he summoned an attack.  The bones had barely formed before he hurled them at the spider barkeep in a dense wave.  Muffet leapt backward with a yelp, then shrieked as the trailing edge of the formation tore a gouge through her shoulder. 

“ENOUGH,” she spat, then leapt forward and sank her fangs into his collarbone, biting straight through the fabric of his hoodie. 

“ah, Ah, AH!  AHHHHHH!” Stretch screamed as Muffet jerkily tensed, relaxed, then tensed again, injecting surge after surge of venom into his marrow.  Each jerk shot a blinding flash of agony through his collarbone that slammed through his shoulder and side like a rush of molten lead.  Instead of overwhelming him the way pain usually did, it built to a blinding sharpness, keeping his focus locked on his agonized body until he’d screamed himself hoarse and Muffet finally pulled away.

“I’m sorry Stretch, but I have to think of my people,” she whispered, panting as purple venom and saliva dripped slowly down her chin.

Stretch gasped raggedly, barely able to breathe as Muffet’s venom spread through his body with a slow prickle of uncomfortable heat.  His clavicle itched and burned, and the fingers of his injured arm twitched uncontrollably. 

Muffet took a deep breath, then crawled forward and lifted his arms over his head.  Moving slowly and carefully, she reached for the hem of his hoodie again. 

_NO._

Frantically, Stretch reached for his magic and tried to form it into an attack.  The attempt sent an agonizing throb through his shoulder and collarbone, forcing him to abandon the attempt as it literally became impossible to breathe.

“Keep still,” Muffet belatedly advised as his vision started to go dark.  “Your body needs everything you have to fight the paralysis, and if you...”

Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t-

Distantly, he felt Muffet tilt his head up and press her mouth to his.  Air rushed into his mouth, and he suddenly realized that she was trying to breathe for him. 

 _Won’t work,_ Stretch thought dimly.  Under normal circumstances, he could live for days without breathing, as long as he didn’t mind being groggy and irritable the entire time.  He didn’t need air, he needed movement.  The chest motions that most monsters used to breathe was how his body, lacking a heart, circulated magic through itself.

But if his body needed that magic to fight off Muffet’s venom…

Oh god…

Holy fuck, he was going to die.

“Stay with me,” he distantly heard Muffet mutter.  He felt hands press firmly into his ribcage, forcing his chest to expand as air rushed into his mouth again.  The movement did what the oxygen couldn’t, and Stretch felt his mind grudgingly clear as his magic started to move again.  The hands compressed his chest, waited a moment, then repeated the motion, moving slowly and persistently.  Expand, contract, expand-

Stretch choked, coughed weakly, then gasped as reflex took over and he started to breathe on his own again.  Tears welled up in the corners of his eyes, then spilled down his cheekbones as the near asphyxiation and reality of his situation suddenly hit him.  Too close, way too _fucking_ close.  Muffet had come within seconds of killing him.  _Seconds._

“There you are,” Muffet murmured, wiping the tears off his face.  “Shhhh, shhhh.  This will be so much easier for you if you stop fighting and just let it happen.  There, there, don’t cry.”

Stretch's eyes burned as more tears spilled from his sockets.  Murmuring softly and soothingly, Muffet pulled his upper body into her arms.  Gently, she stripped him of his torn, sweat-soaked hoodie and undershirt, maneuvering his limp arms and head so carefully she might have been working with glass.  Stretch didn’t even try to resist, mind filled with numb horror.  Was being raped better than being dead?  It was probably better than being poisoned again.  Or not being able to breathe.

Were those really his only options?

Once his torso was bare, Muffet tilted his arm upward and examined the small punctures in his collarbone and scapula. 

“Hnngh-“ he choked as the spider barkeep gently licked the bite-wounds, tongue soothingly cool against the heat and prickling itch.  A few seconds later, they went numb, apart from a low, pulsing throb that ran down the center of his arm.  Shaking and overwhelmed, Stretch closed his eyes, frantically trying to figure out exactly what Muffet wanted with him.  Kinky sex?  She could have just _asked_ him.  He probably wouldn’t have said no.  He desperately hoped that she wasn’t going to kill him, even though his logical side was grimly certain that she would be throwing his dust in the river before today was over.

But before that…if she just wanted was sex…maybe his best hope was to keep her busy.  To give his brother time to notice he was missing, _hopefully_ not think he was slacking off, and then send help?

Holy fuck he was going to have to keep her busy for a while.

“Hush now, be still” Muffet whispered, laying him back down on the web.  She crawled around to his feet, then lifted his knees with one set of hands while a second set removed his shoes. She tossed them aside, then gently slipped his pants off.  Her eyes lit up the second his legs were exposed, gazing hungrily at his bare pelvis.

“ _Yes_ ,” she sighed, cradling his ilium between two sets of hands.  “I was worried you might not have the right equipment.”

 _Equipment for what?!_ Stretch wanted to scream.  It came out as a low, terrified whimper.  Muffet tutted and stroked his cheekbones with her thumbs in slow, comforting circles while her other hands tenderly parted his legs and fingered the rim of his pelvic inlet. 

“You need to relax,” she said softly when Stretch tried to jerk away and his legs twitched weakly in her hands.  “You could hurt yourself if you tense up like this during deposition.”  Stretch twitched again, breath coming in shallow, broken gasps.  Deposition?!  What the hell did _that_ mean?!

“I will be able to help you a little, but this will be MUCH easier if you work with me,” she insisted.  “It might even feel good.”  She placed another kiss on his forehead, then pulled away and stood over him, a thoughtful expression on her face.  Stretch felt achingly exposed as her eyes critically traced his naked body, face glowing as embarrassment seeped past his fear.  His body looked so stupid without clothes on – his arms and legs were too long, his hips were too narrow, and the notches all along his spine stuck out in a weird, stupid-looking way.  He was torn between praying she hadn’t noticed, and hoping that she _would_ notice and be so disgusted that she let him go.

“You’re so open,” Muffet finally said, leaning forward to trace the large, empty space between the bottom of his ribs and the top of his pelvis with the tip of one finger.  “That will help a lot.” 

Stretch was beginning to suspect that sex wasn’t all she wanted.

Ignoring her guest’s growing unease, Muffet carefully wrapped her fingers around the skeleton’s ankles and pulled him forward a few inches to straighten his spine.  Starting at his neck, she began tying him down with loops of spider-silk, licking the pads of her fingers, then lightly pulling each strand through her hand before using it.  The extra step must have been to neutralize the stickiness, because the thin, stretchy cord pulled across his bones with barely a whisper of friction, light and cool to the touch.  Stretch grimaced, unable to squirm as the bindings slowly pulled tight across his vertebrae with an agonizing tickle. 

“Ah…hnn-,” he gasped, breath catching as every deft tug pinned him more and more firmly into place.  When Muffet finally sat back, satisfied, Stretch’s entire spine from neck to sacrum was tightly woven into the hammock beneath him, leaving him gasping for breath as sweat trickled down his face.  Muffet eyed him curiously.

 “Is your spine really so sensitive?  I never would have guessed,” she giggled and ran her fingers down his sacrum.  Stretch twitched under the light touch, then gasped when the bindings slipped into the little spaces between his vertebrae and rested there with maddeningly unsatisfying pressure.  “How wonderfully curious.”

“Hnngh-“ he moaned when she stroked him more firmly, every tiny quiver and vibration sending a rush of warm tingles through his back where the cords bound him into place.  She stroked him again, then gave him a look of pleased surprise when his hips weakly bucked up to meet her.  “The paralysis is lifting?”  she smiled, gently placed a kiss in the center of his sternum, then pulled his hands and feet together.   “Good, we won’t have to wait.  You’re strong, to throw it off so quickly.”

Stretch didn’t feel strong when Muffet bound his ankles to his wrists, spread his knees apart as far as they could comfortably go, then tied them in place.  He wasn’t sure what he felt, but it was somewhere between mind-numbing panic, nauseating fear, and bewildered sexual desperation.

“Does this please you?” Muffet purred, then abruptly ran her fingers down his spine, fingers catching at every strand on the way down.  Stretch arched reflexively, wailing as the movement pulled the bindings tight.  He reeled, attention sucked down to the minute spaces between his vertebrae where the silken fibers had worked their way into his joints.  The sensation was so intense that he barely noticed when Muffet’s other hand began to rub at his pubic symphysis, shivering reflexively as his pelvis heated and throbbed needily.

“I believe that’s a yes,” Muffet smirked, one set of hands stroking rhythmically up and down along the insides of his femurs, another teasing at the holes in his sacrum and the third continuing to knead his symphysis.  “I need you to form an opening for me, dear.”

There was no way she was just after kinky sex.  Not with all those looks she was giving his midsection.  Did she want to...

No...no way

Holy fuck she did. Oh god…no, no, NO. Holy FUCK _NO_!!

“N-no…please d-don't” Stretch gasped, magic surging painfully against his pelvic inlet as he forced it to stay unformed.  “Please…”

Muffet leaned forward and slowly licked through the swirling magic covering his sacrum, insistently pressing her fingers in and out of his pelvic inlet.  Stretch jerked and sobbed, pleas dissolving into a mess ragged gasps and incoherent mewls as the pressure of magic building up inside his pelvic girdle became unbearable.  In a last, impulsive attempt to defy her, Stretch directed it to form a cock instead of an opening.  He yelped when the magic sparked painfully against Muffet’s fingers before the organ could fully coalesce.

“No, no, no dearie,” Muffet chuckled, leaving her thumb running gently up and down along the notch of his pubic symphysis, right where his cock anchored itself to his body.  “I said an opening.”

Reinforcing her words, she dipped two fingers inside Stretch’s pelvic inlet and firmly rubbed the front of his sacrum and tailbone.  Stretch gasped, shook, then collapsed with a full-body shudder and a broken sob as his magic complied and wrapped around her fingers, forming a small, basic slit with a shallow passage that ended halfway up his sacrum.

“Oh my.  You’ve made it so small and minimal,” Muffet tutted, scissoring him open with two fingers.  “You’re making this very difficult on yourself dearie.”

Stretch whimpered, unable to look away as Muffet stroked the inside of his newly-formed cunt with one set of hands, using the others to open the waistband of her pants.  She only pulled one of her legs free before she reached between the soft, blue folds at her groin and began rocking against her own fingers with small, wordless gasps.  Stretch quivered, watching as her fingers pulled out, glistening faintly before plunging back inside.  The fingers still inside him matched her tempo, slipping back and forth more and more easily until they began making wet, squelching sounds and tiny trickles of fluid dripped down the back of his pelvis. Numbly, he watched the fingers dip into him, trying to lose himself in the little tugs of the web against his spine, Muffet's quiet gasps of pleasure. Might as well, especially if the spider barkeep was planning what he thought she was planning. Fighting back was only going to make it hurt. A lot.

“Good, good." Muffet gasped as Stretch finally went completely slack beneath her, whimpering softly as she fingered the wet folds of his pussy.  "Hold still for me love.” Muffet quickly unbuttoned her shirt with her free hand and let it fall away.  Her body was lithe and wiry, with small, firm breasts and slender arms and legs like a gymnast.  The only thing that didn’t quite fit was her stomach, which was puffy and slightly swollen.  Stretch didn’t get to look at it for very long before Muffet began to grind against him, rubbing the lips of her pussy against his, then curling her fingers through the holes in his ischium to tilt his pelvis into a better angle.  His spread knees meant that she could press their entrances directly together, and she rutted against him with small, rough thrusts until three, finger-like projections hidden inside her slit pressed forward inserted themselves shallowly into his vagina.  Slowly, they expanded outward like a speculum, moving in little spurts as Muffet thrust into him.  Stretch groaned, the lips of his pussy burning as the fingers spread him unbearably wide, then hooked backward, locking his entrance to Muffet's with no room to spare.

"Ah, ah, ah, o-ow," Stretch choked as Muffet continued to grind into him, tugging painfully at the clamps locked inside his cunt.  The stretching and slight, lubricated rubbing was horribly unsatisfying.  It left him craving friction and motion so badly it hurt, but he still couldn't manage anything more coordinated than a rough twitch, and that only made the burning worse.

“Shhh, shhhh,” Muffet soothed him, rubbing at the small, rudimentary clit at the top of his entrance.  She began to rut against him more forcefully, ignoring his gasps of pain as her eyes glazed and lost focus. She shuddered, and Stretch jerked, a terrified whimper escaping his throat as he felt something brutally cold and slick press against the spread opening of his pussy.  He stared at the place where his body connected to Muffet's, unable to look away as a black, golf-ball sized egg slipped into his vagina.

A high, panicked whine filled the air.  It took Stretch a moment to realize it was him.

“Shhhh, It's ok, it's ok,” Muffet crooned, voice losing its soothing tone as she began to push into him faster.  A second egg quickly joined the first, then a third.  They pressed outward against the shallow entrance he’d made, the pressure quickly growing painfully tight as a fourth egg forced itself inside.

“AAGGGHH!” Stretch wailed, convulsing as a fifth egg tried to join the others.

“Relax,” Muffet panted, entire body quivering as she kneaded the outside of his passage.  “You need to make somewhere for them to go.”

“No…no no no no NOOOO,” Stretch sobbed, arching backward with a wordless scream as the fifth egg tried to enter him again.  The bindings along his spine felt too tight now, painful instead of pleasant.

“You can do this, work with mE-UGH!” Muffet groaned as her body tried to push the egg into Stretch's body again.  It barely managed to slip free of Muffet's entrance, getting caught on the three ovipositors locking her body to Stretch's and sharpening the pain to an excruciating burn.  Stretch sobbed incoherently, tears streaming down his face as she began rubbing the front of his spine, kneading his pubic symphysis and his agonizingly swollen passage, murmuring soothing nothings as she twitched, clearly struggling to hold back the rest of the eggs until the ones inside him had a place to go.  He moaned and hiccupped, feeling his body warming as the intense pressure in his cunt and the hands pressing into his sensitive places pushed at him insistently, demandingly...

Stretch choked as the orgasm hit him, cunt feeling as though it were splitting open as it tightened around the eggs and Muffet’s ovipositors.  After a long, agonizing second, the pressure abruptly released and he came again before the first orgasm had fully abated, screaming with relief as the eggs shot upwards and nestled into their newly-formed womb.

“G-good boy,” Muffet panted, stroking his face.  “Good, good, good,” she broke off as she began rutting into him again, eggs pumping into him one after the other, so many that he quickly lost count.  They clustered in his entrance until Muffet’s hands shakily guided them upward, squeezing along the outside of his passage and stroking the surface of his womb with a gentleness that bordered on reverence.

“P-please…n-no m-m-more …” Stretch sobbed as more and more eggs clustered inside him, womb beginning to burn warningly as they stressed the limits of his magic.  “Please, please, please…”

“Shhh, you're doing well...don't fight it, you're ok,” Muffet murmured, jerking forward as another egg slipped from her body to his.  "You're ok."

He was NOT ok. He was many things but he was definitely NOT OK.

After what felt like an eternity, Muffet finally slowed, then stopped, draped over Stretch’s pelvis as she gasped and shook.  After a second, she shuddered, and one, final egg squeezed through their joined openings.  Stretch jerked a little as she guided it upward to nestle with the others, kneading his intensely sore womb with her fingers to make room. 

“Ah, HNNGH!” Muffet convulsed the moment the egg was in place, and a white, milky liquid spurted into Stretch’s entrance.  He weakly cried out as it pressed against his burning cunt, feeling it quickly harden into a thick plug that clung to his walls and sealed the eggs tightly inside him.

Stretch barely noticed when Muffet withdrew her ovipositors, letting him fold closed around the plug while she untied his legs and placed them in a more natural position below him.  She re-tied his hands at his sides, then slowly rubbed his swollen belly.  The eggs clung tight to his spine, barely showing past the curve of his ribs.  There were a lot of them.  Too many to count, glistening through their orange-tinted womb in the faint light of Muffet's parlour.

“Good boy, oh my good, brave boy, you did so well,” Muffet murmured, reverently stroking his swollen belly.  Stretch whimpered and tightly closed his eyes, desperately hoping that he would finally pass out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, I was going to have Muffet's pet do the oviposition. You have all been spared of that horrible twist. You're welcome.


	3. Spider Bath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Stretch gets a spider bath.

Stretch didn’t pass out, but Muffet did.  She spent a few moments stroking his womb with sweaty, shaking hands, then all five of her eyes rolled up to the top of her head and she collapsed limply onto the hammock.  The web bounced a little as she settled, coming to rest face-down, with four of her arms sticking under her at awkward angles.  The last two ended up across Stretch’s hips, hands still draped over his glowing, egg-swollen abdomen. 

Holy hell, it hurt. 

“Nnn,” Stretch moaned, trembling as he struggled to breathe by only moving his ribs and nothing else.  Soreness radiated from the places where Muffet’s hands pressed into him, and the rest of his pseudo-uterus was aching with cramps.  Everything between his legs was engorged, burning, and throbbing like a bad bruise.  The plug kept the lips of his pussy slightly parted and prickled uncomfortably where it pushed outward against the walls of his passage, especially where Muffet’s ovipositors had locked into him.  It made him want to reach down and try to yank it out, but that would require moving.  Moving was definitely a bad idea right now.

Stretch closed his eyes, torn between cynical laughter and hysterical sobbing when, on top of EVERYTHING ELSE, a pounding headache began to remind him that he was overdue for a cigarette.  Because that was clearly the worst thing that had happened to him today.  Missing a goddamn cigarette. 

Why him?  Holy fuck, of _everyone_ Muffet could have preyed upon, why had she chosen him to use for this?  It wasn’t because he was an easy target.  He knew for a fact that he wasn’t the weakest monster in the Underground.  If the spider barkeep hadn’t caught him off guard and cheated with webs, she never would have been able to hold him down long enough to bite him, let alone…

Let alone _this._  

Was it because she thought nobody would notice he was missing?  That couldn’t be it.  He didn’t really have any friends apart from Undyne and his brother, but surely _they_ would start searching for him pretty soon…. 

Wouldn’t they?

Stretch’s judgement was one of few things he trusted unquestionably, but up until a few hours ago, he would have counted Muffet as one of the few people who actually gave a damn about him.  The spider barkeep always looked happy to see him, was always willing to listen to his stupid, insecure ramblings about wanting more people to like him.  About how he could never be as good as Blue, his perfect brother who excelled at everything without even trying.  About how tired he always was, trying to juggle two to three jobs to make ends meet.  Maybe it was stupidity, but he’d actually thought she cared.

Well, so much for that.  It was pretty damn clear how much Muffet actually _cared_.

“Agh-“ Stretch hissed as the last dregs of Muffet’s venom made his legs twitch involuntarily.  The room swayed nauseatingly as the movement sharpened the pain in his aching, abused body to the point of agony. Reflexively, he tried to curl into a ball and the bindings on his spine pulled tight over the raw spaces between his vertebrae with a bitter sting.  The unexpected pain pushed his non-existent stomach over the edge.  He turned his head to the side and heaved, only able to bring up a muddy, orange mucous that scorched the back of his throat and coated his mouth with an awful, burning acidity.  He heaved again, breaking down into sobs as the cramps, stinging, and lingering weakness from the paralysis all seemed to slam down on him at once. 

 _Home_ , he thought miserably as tears ran down his face.  _I want to go home_.

He flinched when Muffet’s arms suddenly lifted off of his abdomen, gasping as the lack of pressure eased the soreness in his womb.  He sniffed hard and turned his head, expecting to see the spider barkeep waking up next to him.  Instead, he found himself staring at a slender, black pillar.

The pillar moved, articulating itself along delicate joints to scoop underneath Muffet’s legs.  Others supported her head, back, and arms, lifting her up to the fanged mouthparts of an enormous spider.  Stretch stared, more confused than frightened as the arachnid delicately manipulated Muffet’s arms and parted her legs, closely examining her with cluster of glittering eyes.  After a moment, it cradled her close and closed its mouthparts over her torso.  Muffet groaned, lifting her head woozily.

“Croline,” she mumbled irritably, pushing weakly against the spider’s head as it nibbled along her body.  “Croline, stooooop…”

The spider largely ignored her, closing the eyes closest to Muffet’s hand and chittering softly as it struggled to support her wiggling body on the smooth ends of four legs.  When she didn’t settle down, it set her back onto the web, pinned her in place, and continued where it left off.  Muffet grumbled feebly through its ministrations, squirming fitfully until it pulled back, apparently satisfied.  It nudged her back into a more comfortable sleeping position, chittered once, then carefully stepped over Stretch’s restrained body.

Stretch stared numbly at the shiny, black surface of the arachnid as it bent close to his face.  It peered at him for a long moment, then leaned forward, spread its mouthparts wide, and slowly closed its outermost jaws around the back of his skull.  Stretch shut his eyes tightly, holding as still as possible.  He was pretty sure he knew what the spider wanted, but having his head trapped in something’s mouth like this was still badly unnerving.

“Uhgh,” Stretch flinched as something that might have been a tongue moved over his cheek.  It rasped over the bone like a sheet of oily sandpaper, moving in short, gentle strokes as it wiped the sick away from his mouth.  He winced, face scrunched up while it thoroughly cleaned his jaw, then firmly swiped along the interface between his clenched teeth.  Stretch shook his head and tried to pull back, hands jerking weakly against the knots tying them at his sides.  The spider chittered insistently at him, then carefully pried his mouth open and slipped inside.

“Mnnph!” Stretch objected, jerking harder on the restraints as the spider licked the inside of his jaw.  It wasn’t quite like a kiss, but there was something strangely erotic about the way it patiently waited for him to adjust before curling around his tongue and pulling slowly over the roof of his mouth.  He squirmed, making muffled, unhappy squeaks as the lapping began to move deeper and his mouth was gently forced to open wider.  The spider ignored him, scouring his entire mouth and a good part of his throat before it finally pulled away, leaving his tongue tingling and flooded with a bitter, oily aftertaste.  It wasn’t unpleasant, especially compared to the flavour of vomit, but Stretch still found himself grimacing as his head was released. 

The spider spent the next several minutes delicately picking apart the bindings on his neck and spine, releasing his wrists so it could nudge his arms aside.  It moved with exaggerated care when it reached his abdomen, touching him so softly it almost tickled.  When the last strand fell away, it carefully scooped him up and pulled him level to its mouth. 

“Nnno, h-hey,” he gasped as the tongue curled around the processes in his spine and dipped into the space between each rib.  The roughness felt nice over his arms, scapula and the outside of his ribs, but it was uncomfortably harsh against the inside of his chest cavity and the sore joints in his spine.  The spider seemed to notice and began to lick at those places more carefully, giving every inch of bone slow, patient attention as it moved down his body.

He yelped when it touched his womb, more out of reflex than because it actually hurt.  The spider paused, chittered to him, then very gently worked its way along the strained ecto-flesh, spreading a thin layer of oily saliva over the surface.  The gentle prodding helped ease the cramps, and he slowly relaxed, eyes drifting closed as the pain was relieved. 

They flew open when his legs were drawn apart.

“Not there,” Stretch gasped, weakly trying to cover himself as the spider peered closely at his sex.  It pushed his hands away and chittered sharply, probably threatening to pin him down the way it had with Muffet if he didn’t behave.  Stretch stilled, face burning with mortification as his knees were pointedly nudged further apart.  The tongue bath had left his body warm and tingling, and now the unexpected pelvic exam was making the magic of his swollen, seeping entrance brighten embarrassingly. 

“Ah,” he moaned as the spider nudged the end of the plug, sending a confusing pulse of pleasant warmth and burning sting through the abused construct.  The spider hesitated, then gently turned him on his side, pulled one of his legs over its head, and wrapped its mouthparts around his groin.

“Ah-!” Stretch groaned, feeling the tongue slip around his tailbone, then trace around the outside of his pelvic inlet where the bare bone showed through the ecto-flesh.  It slipped over his folds, swirled once around his clit, then paused.  Stretch panted, legs trembling as a rush of hormones and the baffling mix of pain and pleasure left him unsure whether he wanted to lie in the spider’s grip and cry, or struggle to get away.

Crying won out as the spider returned its attention to his swollen clitorous, nibbling and lapping the rudimentary cluster of nerves with firm, quick strokes.  Stretch almost never used a pussy, and his few sexual experiences hadn’t progressed much beyond clumsy hand-jobs and quick, inexperienced sex.  The spider, on the other hand, seemed to know exactly what to do to bring him to a quick, uncomplicated climax.  He peaked with a soft gasp, knees squeezing reflexively around the spider’s head for a moment before he sagged into the legs supporting his head and torso, tears running down his cheeks.  He was too tired to cry properly, and too overwhelmed to struggle for freedom as the spider set him down and let him curl around engorged midsection, eyes closing as exhaustion finally set in and he drifted off to sleep.

===

Stretch woke up shivering and blearily confused.  His entire body was wracked with terrifyingly unfamiliar chills, as though his cold-insensitive physique had suddenly decided that he needed to maintain an internal temperature and was panicking while it struggled to keep him warm.  He opened his eyes a crack and lifted his head, teeth chattering.  The web underneath him offered no more warmth than a sheet of lace, but his hoodie was around here somewhere.  Surely that would be enough to keep him warm.

“Ughhh,” he groaned, struggling to push himself up.  His shoulder throbbed and he winced, lifting his free hand to feel along the bone.  His fingers brushed over a loose pattern of tiny cracks, then the edges of two closely spaced holes punched in his scapula.  One of Muffet's bites from earlier.

“Does it hurt?” Muffet’s voice asked from somewhere to his left.

Stretch let his hand drop, closing his eyes.  “Cold,” he croaked, feeling a petty surge of irritation at having to explain how he was feeling.  Goddamn, a cigarette sounded _really_ good right now.  Nicotine and warmth, all wrapped up in a neat little cylinder.

“You’re cold?  Just a moment.” Stretch felt the web bounce a little as Muffet briefly left, then bounce again when she returned.  “Here,” she said, tucking a heavy quilt around his shoulders.  Stretch hummed gratefully, pulling the blanket close.  The shivering slowly subsided as his body warmed the heavy fabric and his eyes drifted closed…

===

Faint light shone through a tiny skylight set in the wooden ceiling rafters just above him.  Stretch groaned, stirred, then immediately regretted moving when his abdomen cramped sharply.  He doubled over with a grunt, taking slow, shuddering breaths until the ache eased.  Panting softly, he lifted the blanket with shaking fingers, took a deep breath, and looked down at himself.  A yellow-orange glow reflected off the faded blue and purple of the quilt, emanating from the womb that covered his entire midsection.  He tentatively touched it with two fingers, numbly surprised when the smooth ecto-flesh pressed firmly into his phalanges with noticeable warmth.  The eggs behind the flesh were opaque, black spheres that lay inside the top of his pelvic girdle and swelled to either side of his spine, suspended in a clear fluid that his body must have produced last night.  It created a gentle swell that matched the profile of his ribs without forming the usual tummy shape that he’d seen on other pregnant monsters.  It was strangely disappointing.  For how sore he was, it didn’t look like he was actually that full.

He heard the dry rustle of a page turning and looked up.  Muffet was sitting across from him, a large, leather-bound book spread across her lap.  She frowned, eyes flicking over a section for a few moments before she looked up.  She smiled tiredly when she saw he was awake, and set the book aside.

“Good morning.  Are you hungry?” she asked softly.

Stretch was famished, but she didn’t deserve to know that.  She didn’t deserve to know anything about him ever again.

Muffet sighed when he stayed silent, lacing her fingers together tightly.  “If it makes you feel better, I really am sorry. I didn’t have much of a choice dearie.”

Stretch felt his eyesockets burn and an ugly, angry lump form in his throat.  It was odd for him to get worked up, he was usually pretty laid back, but he was beyond caring about losing his cool.  He was pretty sure getting knocked up against his will qualified for some fucking anger.

“You must be starving.  Here, I brought this,” she pushed a tray in front of him.  It held a bowl of milky oatmeal, a cup of tea, and a plate of toast.  “I can get you something else if you don’t want it.”

Stretch turned his face away, trembling as tears rolled down his face.  He didn’t want anything from _her._   Not her food, not her worthless apologies.  He didn’t even want to acknowledge that she existed.

Muffet laughed softly.  “I guess I deserve the silent treatment.  Please eat, you’re going to start feeling terrible if you don’t.”

“ _I trusted you_ ,” Stretch whispered, curling his fingers tightly into the web beneath him.  “ _I thought you were my friend.”_

Muffet looked away, and took a deep breath.  “I know,” she said in a small voice.

“THEN **WHY**?!” Stretch screamed, flinging a hand across the tray.  The contents smashed into the wall, oozing down the wood to drip on the floor far below.  Pain lanced through his midsection at the abrupt movement, fueling his anger.  “ **WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME**?!!”

Muffet stood, looking down at him with tears glimmering in the corners of her eyes.  “I did what I had to do,” she whispered, unable to repress the quaver in her voice.  She turned and jumped gracefully off the edge of the web, landing on the floor with a quiet thump.  Head high and back stiffly straight, she walked out of the room, closing the door behind her with a quiet click.

Stretch stared at the door for a long moment, tears coursing down his face before curling miserably around his violated body.  All the anger from before quickly faded into desperate, agonizing sadness, and he sobbed messily into the blanket until his eyes felt hard and dry.  Exhausted, overwhelmed, he pulled the blanket over his head to block out the light, then dropped back into a light, uneasy sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Stretch. He normally wouldn't act like this, but he's in pain, he's getting hormonal mood swings from the pregnancy, and he's withdrawing from nicotine alllll at once. Dammit Muffet, be understanding and help the poor skele, it's the least you can do.


	4. On The Care and Feeding of Surrogate Skeletons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Stretch gets very stressed out.

Stretch woke up what felt like minutes later, so hungry that it was making him light-headed.  Constant, dull cramps rolled across his midsection, providing a counterpoint to his soul’s magic-starved twinges of hunger and the ache throbbing across the base of his skull.  He groaned and gingerly ran the tips of his phalanges over the flesh padding out the space below his ribs, miserably wondering whether the eggs were feeding off of him somehow.  It was the only thing that explained how he could be in this much pain and still feel like eating.

Trembling hard enough to make the web beneath him shake, Stretch slowly uncurled his body and lifted his head out from under the blanket.  A tray had been placed near him.  Like the first, it contained a bowl of oatmeal, a plate of toast, and a mug of tea that had probably been hot at some point.  Unlike the first, a small pile of lollipops had been left next to the tea, their red, orange, and yellow wrappers instantly catching his eye against the silver and white of the dishes.

Stretch picked one up, feeling his eyes burn and chest grow tight as he unwrapped it and set the candy on his tongue.  Tears rolled down his cheeks and his shoulders shook with repressed sobs as the sweetness and cheap, cherry flavour flooded his mouth.  The taste was almost unbearably good.

He quickly finished the lollipop and descended on the rest of the food, too hungry to care that it was all cold and that he was supposed to be hating Muffet right now.  He barely tasted any of it, abandoning the spoon to eat directly out the bowl and licking toast crumbs off the plate, wishing there was more.  He finished off three more lollipops in quick succession before regretfully exerting some self-control and saving the rest for later.  He sincerely doubted that Muffet was going to let him smoke while he was like this, and the one time he’d (sort of) come close to quitting, these had helped with the cravings.  A little.

A bare lollipop stick clenched in his teeth, Stretch carefully pushed himself upright, struggling to use only his arms and upper body without also engaging his sore mid-section.  After a minute of slow, clumsy shifting, he managed a sitting position, then immediately pulled the quilt up around his shoulders as cold air invaded his rib-cage and chilled his egg-filled abdomen.  Shivering lightly, he looked around.

Muffet’s bar and café was situated on a rocky outcrop in Hotland, right next to the main thoroughfare between the capitol and Waterfall.  It was a blocky, four-storey building that served patrons out of the ground floor, and housed most of the region’s spider population in the upper floors.  Or…at least that’s what people thought Muffet did with all the extra space.  Spiders didn’t seem to live anywhere else in the Underground, and spider monsters of all shapes and sizes were often seen entering or leaving the building through the back doors.  It made an odd sort of sense.

The room around him was a tall rectangle with a ceiling so lofty that Muffet must have knocked out the floors and ceilings of all four storeys, then replaced them with sheets of webbing to achieve the height.  Stretch was on the top-most layer, close to forty-five feet above the ground.  Definitely a bit of a jump, but it was do-able for him. 

At least it _was_ when he could sit up for five minutes without passing out.

With a whimpered groan, Stretch lay back down, one hand pressed against his aching belly.  He waited for his head to stop spinning, then ground his teeth into the lollipop stick and looked up.  His hoodie was lying on the web, just a few feet out of reach.  He almost didn’t recognize it at first.  He’d forgotten that the fabric had originally been a bright, obnoxious orange, and not a dull, brownish-blackish orange.  Muffet must have washed it for him.

Fine.  Hoodie first, ground later.

Thinking excessively unkind things about Muffet for not leaving it closer, he rolled onto his hands and knees, then crawled forward.  The hammock dipped and swayed with each of his clumsy movements, like a trampoline with bad springs.  He ignored it, concentrating so hard on the goal that he didn’t notice that he’d started sweating and trembling until after he had the familiar orange fabric in his hands.

His thin sense of triumph quickly waned as the cramps through his abdomen sharpened to the point where it felt like someone had wrapped their hands around his womb and were twisting it with sadistic glee.  Holy hell, what was _wrong_ with him?!   Well, apart from the fact that Muffet had turned him into a living incubator, but still!  He’d seen pregnant monsters walking around before, and they were capable of crawling more than six feet without feeling like they’d been sucker-punched.  Gasping through the discomfort and bewildering exhaustion, Stretch curled into a ball, hoodie pressed tight to his chest as he rocked back and forth, back and forth... 

Little by little, the ache faded, leaving him feeling sticky and worn out.  Once the pain had become bearable, he uncurled and wiggled into his hoodie.  It was too short to cover more than the tops of his ilium, so his legs were left bare and cold.  That meant another painful crawl back to the quilt, then an awkward wiggle to cover himself with it before he collapsed, completely spent.

“Ughhh…” Stretch groaned, panting harder than the time Blue had dragged him along on a training jog.  Holy fuck he wanted a cigarette.  He was exhausted, wide-awake, and so overwhelmed that he badly wanted to break down and cry some more.  It was like his body and mind were arguing over whether or not he was supposed to be sleeping and had compromised by making him feel fuzzy and over-emotional.  Heh…it did make a weird sort of sense.  He’d never been able to sleep more than three or four hours a night, no matter how much Blue had nagged at him.  He wasn’t sure how much he’d already slept today, but he was pretty sure that he was well over his usual quota.

“Stretch?  Are you…oh my.  You really shouldn’t overexert yourself, dearie,” came Muffet’s voice over his shoulder.  Stretch whimpered and tugged his hood down over his eyes, hoping she would just go away.

“Come on, be a good boy and let me see,” she said firmly, and he felt her pull the quilt away from his legs.

“Go away,” Stretch whispered, curling around himself more tightly as those damn tears started running down his face again.  “P-please, just go away.”

“Don’t be difficult,” she scolded, sighing with exasperation when she finally managed to pull the quilt off and he pulled his knees up to his chest and tucked his arms hard against his sides.  “Croline?”

Something big and frighteningly strong slipped itself into the gap between his tibia and fibula, pinning his legs to the web.

“S-stop, leave me alone, just leave me…” Stretch broke off with a muffled sob as the massive spider from last night speared his arms through the gap between his radius and ulna, then slowly pulled them over his head.  He squirmed as it forced him to uncurl, panting, sweating, and shaking.  The spider (Croline?) looked different in the light.  Its body had an odd, cylindrical shape to it, like the bottom of a cupcake.

“Shhh, easy love.  We’re not going to hurt you,” Muffet promised, one pair of hands lightly brushing the sides of his skull, one tugging his hoodie up to his chest, and the third gently kneading his abdomen, encouraging the eggs to shift around.  “It probably wouldn’t have hurt at all if you’d just worked with me.”

“Fuck you,” Stretch spat, voice breaking on the second word.

Muffet gave him a look. “Oh, hush.  You’re going to be fine.”

“Then leave me the fuck alone!  Haven’t you done ENOUGH?”

“Dearie, we need to check how things are going and do this least a couple times a day,” she replied, pressing firmly into his abdomen and ignoring his little gasp of discomfort as she forced the eggs to move inside him.  “The little ones won’t get the magic they need if we don’t.  Also, if one of us isn’t around to help and you go into labour, then things could go badly.”

Stretch eyed her, fear sending a sharp chill down the back of his neck.  He hadn’t considered what might happen if he was actually forced to carry the eggs to term.  A part of him wanted to ask Muffet what the hell she meant by things ‘going badly,’ but the rest of him was so uncomfortable and terrified that it felt like his throat was closing up.

Muffet winced as she brushed her fingers over his bruised labia and the thick plug lodged inside his passage.  “Goodness you got torn up.  You really should have made this bigger.”

“Are you done molesting me?  I’m freezing and I want to go home.” Stretch choked, wishing his voice sounded less weak and afraid.  Instead of answering him, Muffet tugged the hem of his hoodie back down and pulled the quilt back over him with a small sigh.

“I can’t let you go home.  Not until the little ones arrive.  It usually takes about a week, sometimes longer,” she finally said as Croline let him go and nudged his legs back under the quilt.  “The little ones take magic and heat from you and use it to grow.  They’re going to get twice as big before you go into labour,” she held up a hand, making a fist.  “About like this.”

Stretch was staring at her, barely hearing what she was saying.  He was NOT going to bring this...holy fuck, could he even call it a pregnancy?!  He was not going to bring this _pregnancy_ to term.

“And what about after that?  You’re just going to let me go home?  Just like that?” Stretch laughed, fear and pain giving his voice a hysterical edge.  “Like nothing fucking happened?  ‘Come by anytime dearie, no hard feelings?’”

Muffet closed her eyes and turned her face away.  “If you don’t believe me, then there’s nothing else I can say.”

“Muffet, for the love of the Angel, you _have_ to let me go,” Stretch pleaded, pushing himself up onto his elbows.  “Think about this, _please._   I…” Stretch swallowed hard, trying to shake off a sudden rush of light-headedness.  “I don’t want to do this.  I’m really scared and I feel sick. Undyne is good at keeping secrets, she-“

“No,” Muffet interrupted quietly, still looking off into the distance.

“Do you honestly think you can get away with this?” Stretch demanded, trying to force himself to focus.  “My bro’s probably already looking for me.  What are you going to say when he shows up here with a squad of royal guards? They’ll figure out where I am.  It’s just a matter of time.”

“True.  But like I said,” Muffet replied, opening her eyes and looking back at Stretch with an oddly sad expression.  “It’s only for a week.  Maybe a little less, maybe a little more.”

Stretch dropped his head back onto the web, head spinning so much that he literally couldn’t keep himself upright.  He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to will the room to stop bobbing up and down like the Riverperson’s ferry.  What was he missing?  Why did Muffet suddenly hate him so fucking much? What had he done wrong?

  “Please,” he finally begged, weakly.  “What if something goes wrong and I die?  What would happen to t-the-” he swallowed, unable to call the _things_ inside him _little ones._   “Won’t they die with me?”

“You aren’t going to die, love,” Muffet sighed, voice tinged with irritation.  “And the little ones will be fine.  Just let this happen, you’re making it harder on yourself.”

Stretch buried his face in his hoodie.  He was woozy, exhausted, starving, and that horrible, desperate sorrow was creeping into him again, making everything seem grey and hopeless. 

“Please…”  Dear stars, he was so tired…”please, please, please, _please…”_

“Shhh, just rest dearie.  You’re going to be ok,” Muffet hushed, kneeling by his side to rub his shoulder.  Stretch closed his eyes and endured the gentle touch, too tired to jerk away.  The little circles her fingers were making on his humerus felt desperately good, warm and soothing.  Even though Muffet’s reassurance was laughably meaningless, it was hard to deny how nice it felt.

===

Stretch woke up to another tray, this time piled high with baked goods, and a large, leather-bound book.  He demolished the food, spent a few minutes thinking excessively unkind things about Muffet for not leaving more, then shakily picked up the tome.  The title embossed on the spine was written in a curly, ornate script that was almost impossible for him to read.  Blearily, he closed one eye, idly nibbling a lollipop stick as he tried to sound out the letters.

“Err…repp…repp-owd“ Ah, screw it.  Stretch tugged the book closer, opened it to a random page, and was greeted by an extremely graphic and detailed illustration of a male Gyftrot’s genitalia.  Ah, gotcha.  _Reproduction_.  It was a book about sex.  Did…did Muffet think he was a virgin or something?  Granted, he’d never been pregnant before, but he knew more or less how it worked. 

At least he knew how it was supposed to work for skeletons.

Frowning, Stretch flipped through the book until he saw a page with pictures of various spider monsters, each standing protectively over a monster lying just behind them.  The prostrate monsters all looked exhausted, and their bodies were full of those distinctive, black eggs. 

Bingo.

The writing around the pictures was tiny and closely spaced.  Stretch grimaced and set to work deciphering it, covering nearby words with his fingertips and sounding out the sentences aloud.  He kept at it long enough that he was fairly sure the author was talking about compatible monster types for successful oviposition before turning the page.

Oh…

Oh, that looked painful.

Stretch’s pupils shrank as they took in the next round of pictures.  These showed a time-lapse series of a slime monster with a translucent belly slowly growing larger as the eggs inside its body grew, and grew.  The last picture was of the monster writing in agony while the spider parent pressed its fingers into an orifice near its mouth.

Was this what Muffet meant by things ‘going badly?’

Stretch shoved the book away, hands pressed over his mouth as a sudden surge of cramps made him feel nauseous.  He hadn’t given much thought to what would happen if he didn’t manage to escape.  All his plans ran along the lines of ‘get the hell out of here,’ ‘find Undyne,’ and ‘beg for abortion.’  Something about that picture had suddenly made everything he was going through unbearably, terrifyingly real. 

How much time had passed?  How long did he have before…?

Hand trembling, Stretch lifted the blanket and looked down at his abdomen.  Was there a bulge now?  He was sure that his belly had been flat the last time he’d looked, but now... 

Trying to convince himself otherwise, he ran his fingertips over the glowing flesh.  There was definitely a bump, and the eggs definitely looked a little bigger.  If they all doubled in size like Muffet had said…holy fuck, he was going to get huge.  How the hell were they all supposed to come out?  What if they got stuck?  What if they got _too_ big and…

Stretch whimpered, groping between his legs as an odd, throbbing pressure rolled through his abdomen, then dissipated.  His fingers found the plug, and unthinkingly, he pushed his labia back and pinched it between his fingertips.

“Nngh-“ he groaned, fingers trembling as he struggled to pull it out.  It didn’t even budge, tugging at his inner walls as though it had been superglued in place.  He ground his teeth and tried again, then yelped when his fingers slipped off and the sudden, sharp movement sent a spike of pain through his body.  The pressure was worse now, coming in short, hard waves every few seconds.  It was getting so bad that it felt like someone was squeezing his entire abdomen, leaving him breathless and badly scared.

“Ah-AAGH!” he cried, pulling himself into as tight a ball as he could manage when a particularly intense wave rocked through him.  Something was wrong, things were definitely going badly, shit, shit, _shit_ -  “MUFFET!  MUFF-AAAGGHHH!!!”

The blanket was torn off of him and panicked chittering filled his awareness.  Slender black legs tugged his arms away from his abdomen and Croline’s enormous mandibles filled his field of view.  They closed around his midsection, rolled him onto his back and forced him to lie flat.

“Mnngh…haahhh…haahhhh…haAAAHHHGH!” Stretch shrieked, convulsing around Croline’s head.  The mandibles squeezed upward along his womb as the contraction tried to force the eggs downward, firm and insistent.  It was painful and felt nauseatingly wrong, going against everything his body was trying to do.  “S-stop, stop, stoOOOPPPP!”

“Croline?  What-“ Muffet broke off as the giant spider chittered something to her, then lunged forward with a muffled curse.

“Stretch, they’re not ready yet.  It’s only been three days, they need more time.”

“Don’t want to, don’t waaAAANTT!” Stretch howled.  This contraction was weaker, but Croline countered the motion so strongly that the heavy pinch forced the eggs up into the lower part of his rib cage.

“I know, I know,” she murmured, brushing her fingers over the back of his head.  Her voice was calm, but her hands were shaking.  “This is scary for you, but you’re going to be ok.”

“NOT OK I’M NOT I’M NOT I’M-HNNNGH!”

“You need to calm down,” Muffet said sternly, hands pressed to the sides of his face and eyes staring straight into his.  “This is just premature labour.  It happens sometimes when our surrogates get too stressed out.  It’s my fault for forcing you into this and I’m SORRY, ok?  I’m sorry.”

“Don’t believe you, you’re a _liar_ , you lied to me, you lied to meEEEEEEE!”

“Shh, shh, shh, shh, you’re right, I did.  I didn’t have a choice, I was running out of time and-“ Muffet shook her head, biting her lower lip.  “I wouldn’t have done it if I wasn’t completely sure you’d make it through this, I swear. You are going to be ok.”

Stretch gasped for breath as Croline countered another contraction, then whimpered wordlessly once it faded.  They were getting weaker.

“There you are, just relax,” Muffet murmured, reaching around Croline to dip a hand between his legs.  She slipped two fingers between his labia and ran them upward along either side of the plug.  Stretch flinched and cried out, legs trembling uncontrollably.  Muffet’s fingers felt icy against the hot, swollen flesh.  The sensation was intense, not painful or pleasurable, just impossible to ignore.

“Be brave, it’s only four or five more days,” she murmured, running her thumb rhythmically over his throbbing clit.  “The little ones pull a lot out of you at this stage, it will get easier.”

“Mnnnn…” Stretch groaned through a weak contraction, arching feebly against Croline’s jaws.  Muffet’s fingers worked diligently, flicking and rubbing at his sensitive ecto-flesh with constant, rhythmic strokes.  She dipped another hand under his back and caressed the groves between his vertebrae and he choked, body shivering through a half-hearted orgasm.  It was so weak that he felt disappointed and brutally unsatisfied, but he was too tired to do anything other than groan weakly as his body finally complied and stopped trying to reject the eggs. 

Muffet pulled the blanket back over him and kissed his forehead, murmuring soothing nothings that he blearily heard without understanding.  He fell asleep to three pairs of hands gently kneading his twitching abdomen, soothing away the residual cramps and pain from his near-miscarriage.

===

Something warm and sugary trickled into his mouth.  Stretch’s eyes flew open, hands desperately groping at the ceramic mug pressed to his teeth.

“Easy,” Muffet scolded, supporting his head in one set of arms as she pulled the cup out of his grasp.  “Give yourself some time to adjust.”

“Starving,” Stretch rasped, letting his hands drop to his sides.

“I know,” Muffet replied, bringing the cup back.  “Try to go slow.”

The pace Muffet set for him was unbearable, but every time he tried to speed up, she’d take the cup back with a gentle reprimand and force him to wait a few moments before continuing.  It was maddening, but he was too hungry and weak to argue.

“You scared me,” she said quietly once he’d finished the tea.  “I didn’t think you were that stressed.  It’s probably my fault.  I don’t think I was feeding you enough.”  She tore a croissant into bite-sized pieces and held one out, as though she was expecting him to eat it.  Stretch scowled at her, feeling mildly irritated and degraded by the excessive care.  Goddamnit, _no._  He could feed _himself-_   “Your brother came by looking for you.”

“Blue?  How was he?  Was he all right?” Stretch gasped, indignancy forgotten as he tried to sit up and fell back into Muffet’s arms with a pained grunt.  Holy fuck, he was sore. 

“Shh, if you eat for me I’ll tell you,” she said, holding up the piece of croissant.  Stretch stared at her rebelliously for a long moment, struggling between annoyance at being so obviously manipulated, and desperate concern for his brother.  Hunger quickly overcame both of them, and he sighed, opened his mouth, and took the bit of flaky bread from her fingers.  

“He looked well,” Muffet said immediately as he chewed and swallowed.  “Worried about you, of course.  He asked me a lot of questions about when I’d seen you last and whether I had any idea where you’d gone.  I don’t think he caught on that I was lying, but it wouldn’t surprise me.  He’s a smart one.”  She tore up a pastry and held a piece out to him expectantly.  When Stretch took it and dutifully chewed, she continued, “He came in with Captain Alphys.  If he didn’t catch on, then she almost certainly did.  She didn’t say much, just stood around looking intimidating.  I imagine they’ll try to get a search warrant for my café when you don’t show up within the next few days.”

Stretch chewed the next bite of pastry, thinking hard.  Blue was patient, and persistent as hell.  He’d sat outside Captain Alphys’ door all night once, just to convince her to train him to be a royal guard.  He’d get a search warrant from Asgore, no problem.  Probably even sooner than Muffet expected.

“… so beautiful,” Muffet was saying, feeding him another bite of pastry.  Her lower-most set of hands pushed the blanket a little further down and curled around his abdomen, fingers spreading gently over his growing bump.  Stretch looked at her uncertainly, then down at himself.  The eggs looked…different?  They had been opaque before, but now they were a translucent, smoky colour, and each had a point of light shining faintly from the center.  After a second, Stretch realized that the lights were tiny, inverted hearts.  Infant souls.

After a second he looked away, feeling uncomfortable and confused.

Muffet insisted on hand-feeding him three more pastries before she pulled back and set the tray within easy reach. 

“I’ll be back soon, but Croline will be nearby.  If you call, she’ll hear you,” she said, jumping nimbly down to the floor.  Stretch waited until she had left, then took a slice of bread from the tray and took a bite.  The usually inconsequential effort of chewing it was making him feel tired, despite the fact that he’d just woken up and he normally functioned just fine on less than three hours of sleep a night.  Man, even his _jaw_ felt sore.  He’d probably been grinding his teeth in his sleep and hadn’t noticed.  Dammit, he could have sworn he’d stopped doing that years ago.

Stretch gave up on the bread and put it back on the tray, letting his eyes drift closed. 

Reality time. 

He wasn’t going to be jumping down to the floor anytime soon.  Not unless he felt like crawling over to the edge and letting his body splat on the floor.  So escaping was almost certainly out.  If anything, he was probably just going to get weaker as time went on and the eggs developed.  He had to be able to run in order to run away.

But maybe he’d still get out of this.  His bro was coming for him.  Muffet had said he was searching, and the Underground was only so big.  If Blue got over his distaste of shortcuts, he could probably have the whole place covered in less than a day.  All he would have to do is teleport to the room behind Muffet’s bar and look up.  It would be that easy.

Blue was coming.  He cared about him.  He'd noticed he was missing and was doing everything he could to come get him back.

Clinging to that thought, Stretch let himself fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sadness. I needed to break this part into two parts. Otherwise I would have had to cut the miscarriage scene to keep things paced nicely. I'm sure you're all horribly disappointed.


	5. These Things Always Happen at the Worst Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things don't turn out as planned.

“ _Did you hear what they said?”_

_“They said that Croline’s pet is finally taking responsibility for her clan.”_

_“I heard that she found a skeleton.”_

_“I heard that she kidnapped him.”_

_“I heard…”_

Stretch slowly opened his eyes and pushed himself onto his elbows.  It was dark, probably fairly late in the evening, and dozens upon dozens of eyes were staring at him from the shadows at the edges of the room.  They glittered in the low light, bunched in little clusters of eight or nine.

_“…I heard that she forced him to be her surrogate.”_

“What do you want?” Stretch demanded, pulling the blanket tighter around his shoulders.

_“To see if the rumours are true.”_

_“To see if Croline’s pet has finally chosen her clan over her selfish desires.”_

“Croline’s pet?”  Stretch squinted into the darkness.  It was hard to tell, but there were probably seven or eight spider monsters hanging in the air around him, staring at him so intently that he was dead sure they weren’t there to help him.

_“Croline’s pet was our clan leader.  It was her duty to lead the spider clans and reunite those of us who were lost in the ruins.  But instead, she chose to step down.  She became a baker when she was destined to be a queen.”_

_“She abandoned her people.”_

_“But the clan must have a leader, and the leader is born, not made.”_

More eyes appeared in the darkness.  They had an odd malevolence that made the back of Stretch’s neck prickle and uneasy cramps roll across his midsection.  He instinctively reached for his magic and gasped when the effort made his vision blur and a dull ringing sound reverberate through his skull.   He curled his hands into fists swaying a little as he struggled to focus.  Don’t pass out, don’t pass out, _goddammit_ , where were Muffet and Croline??

_“Muffet thought she could step down, but she didn’t have a choice.  The safeguards have been in place since the dawn of time.  In the end, she was forced to accept her role.“_

_“A choice between death and…”_

“Get out,” Muffet’s voice growled behind him.  Stretch whipped his head around and immediately recoiled when he saw the anger boiling behind Muffet’s eyes.  The spiders chittered, but stayed where they were, blinking at her mockingly.

“GET THE FUCK OUT!” Muffet shrieked, summoning a hail of croissant-shaped bullets and flinging them at the intruders.  The bullets made a series of sharp thuds as they connected, and the eyes vanished with a chorus of angry squeals.  Muffet stared at the darkened walls for a long moment, standing eerily still before she turned and glared at the food Stretch had left on the tray.  Stretch quickly picked up the piece of bread he’d abandoned earlier and took a bite, chewing quickly without looking directly at the spider-barkeep.  Muffet swallowed loudly, half lifted her hands, then let them fall limply to her sides.  Without a word, she walked to the far edge of the room and sat heavily on the web just a few paces away from the wall.  She crossed her arms tightly across her chest and let her chin fall to her collarbones, like she was physically trying to hold herself together.

Stretch finished his slice of bread and picked up another.  He really was hungry, especially now that he’d started eating, so it wasn’t hard to keep going.  He glanced over to Muffet every few bites, staring cautiously at her back before returning to the tray.  Croline’s _pet_?  It was hard to imagine Muffet with that epithet, but Stretch couldn’t think of anyone else who might fit.   And what had the intruders meant when they mentioned spiders lost in the ruins?  There weren’t any spiders in the ruins.  Spiders only lived in Hotland, everybody knew that.

A low vibration rippled through the web beneath him, tickling his front.  Stretch looked up in surprise, mouth full of pastry.  Croline was standing off to his left, about twenty steps away from Muffet.  As he watched, the massive spider monster plucked a strand of the web with the end of one leg, making it vibrate like a guitar string.  Muffet’s back straightened.  The vibrating strand ran right under one of her thighs.

“Stop it,” she grumbled, shifting her leg away.  Croline made a muffled chitter that sounded startlingly like a giggle and drew her leg under another strand.  She pulled it tight, then released it with a low-pitched twang.  This one ran under Muffet’s other thigh.

“Croline!” Muffet snapped, looking up with a dark glare and curling the hands of her lowest set of arms into the web to damp out the vibration.  Croline chittered delightedly, then abruptly plucked one of the strands Muffet was holding.  Her shoulder gave a little twitch as the vibration ran through her fingers.

“I am REALLY not in the mood for this,” Muffet whispered. 

Croline responded by plucking three strands in quick succession, one that ran under each of Muffet’s hands, and one that ran directly between her legs.  Muffet jerked and gave a muffled squeak, flinging out a hand to damp out the offending vibration.  Spots of purple appeared across her cheeks that quickly darkened when Croline began to play a complex rhythm on the ten or so strands that Muffet was sitting on, creeping closer with every few notes.  Muffet started to say something, then broke off into a little moan, staring transfixed at the approaching monster.  She shivered lightly as Croline stopped just in front of her, then slowly leaned forward.  Croline dipped down and pressed her head to Muffet’s cheek.  Muffet sniffed hard, leaning into the gentle touch.

“S-sorry, I…I’m…” Muffet whispered, fingers curled into fists and eyes shut tightly.  Gently, Croline wrapped her jaws around Muffet’s middle and lifted her into the air.  Muffet curled into a ball, clinging to Croline’s head as the massive spider carried her down to the floor and out of the room. 

Stretch stared at the floor below him as they left, feeling confused.  Muffet and Croline were definitely an item, so ‘Croline’s pet’ could literally be referring to the fact that Muffet and Croline were...kinky.  Stretch hadn’t ruled it out, but it still seemed weird to him.  _Muffet_ hadn’t said that she was Croline’s pet.  Some random jerk of a spider monster had said that.  Besides, Muffet didn’t seem like the type to talk about her bedroom to anyone, especially to a group of spider monsters she seemed to hate. 

Stretch finished off the rest of the food, then unwrapped a lollipop and sucked at it pensively, trying to recall exactly how a cigarette would taste and feel.  Warm, bitter smoke, burnt taste.  He’d probably been off of them long enough now that the first couple would give him that warm, light feeling again, like he could lose himself in a smouldering ember and a cloud of smoke.

Irritably, he crunched down on the lollipop and got another, trying to force himself to think about something other than nicotine.  Those spiders, the ones who Muffet had attacked…they’d called Muffet their queen?  No, they said she was _supposed_ to be their queen, but that she’d stepped down.  Strange.  Spiders, like all monsters, fell under the rule of King Asgore, even if they did tend to separate themselves by forming clans.  The only other monsters that did that were the Floweys, but…those were _Floweys._ Floweys pretty much did whatever they wanted…

Maybe that was a bad example.

Stretch rested his head on his forearms and closed his eyes.  Thinking also wasn’t helping much with his nicotine cravings, but maybe if he just let his eyes rest for a bit…

===

Stretch woke up with a start as someone peeled something sticky off his face.  He looked up and saw Muffet crouched over him, an amused expression on her face and the stick of a half-finished lollipop pinched between her fingertips. 

“Oops,” she whispered, then looked down.  Her eyes widened when she saw he was awake.  “Oh!  Sorry, you can go back to sleep.”

“Not tired,” Stretch grumbled, rubbing his face with the back of his hand.  Ugh, how long had it been since he’d had a proper shower?  He smelled like spoiled milk, and his bones felt oily and gross, even by his standards.

Muffet gave him an odd look.  “How much do you normally sleep?” She sighed when Stretch scowled at her.  “Croline says surrogates are supposed to sleep constantly.  I thought we were going to have to wake you up to make sure you were eating.” She laughed softly.  “It’s actually kind of a relief that you take care of that yourself.  You don’t sleep much normally, do you?”

“Not much,” Stretch admitted through a yawn.  He tried to stretch and winced as his back and midsection throbbed, sending a sharp ache down the backs of his legs that made his knees give a little jerk.  Oof, that was a new one. 

Muffet bit her lip, then slowly held two sets of hands out, palms up.  “I have to move them around.  I’ll go slow, ok?”

Stretch turned his face away, but otherwise didn’t react when Muffet pulled the quilt away and tugged his hoodie up.  He sucked in a breath when icy fingers began to press into his swollen abdomen, flinching hard.  Muffet pulled back immediately, looking down at him with concern.

“Your hands are cold,” Stretch grumbled.  Man, her hands weren’t the only thing that were cold.  Wasn’t he supposed to be in Hotland?  This room always felt like icicles should be growing on the damn walls.

“They are?” Muffet frowned, then pulled a clean dishtowel out of her apron pocket.  “How about now?”

She draped the towel over Stretch’s belly, then gently pressed inward and down with a slow rolling motion.  Stretch grimaced, but didn’t pull away.  Muffet nodded once to herself, then kept going, moving the towel around to ensure her hands never touched him directly.  The coarseness of the cloth reminded him uncomfortably of Croline’s tongue as Muffet’s hands rolled and released, rolled and released…

“H-how long have I been…?” Stretch finally asked in an attempt to distract himself.  Muffet had left the quilt covering his groin, but he still felt close to mortified by how wet the gentle massage was making him.

“Tomorrow morning will be day five,” Muffet told him absently.  She was staring at the eggs with a soft expression, mouth turned upward in a slight smile.  There were dark circles under her lower-most set of eyes, and fine lines at the corners of her mouth and across her forehead.  With a start, Stretch realized that she looked completely exhausted.  Maybe exhausted enough to let something slip?

“You were supposed to be a queen?” Stretch asked, then quickly continued when Muffet’s expression hardened.  “It was something those other monsters said, before you came in.  Do spiders have their own royal couple?”

Muffet stared off into the distance for very long moment.  Stretch was sure she wasn’t going to answer him when she finally replied, “We have clan leaders.  Those are sort of like kings or queens, I suppose, but there’s only ever one at a time.  Croline is the current clan leader.”

“But then…” Stretch trailed off, confused.

“It’s normally a position that you’re born into.  I was intended to be this generation’s leader but I -“ Muffet broke off with a hard swallow.  “I tried to abdicate.”

Stretch gave her another confused look, and Muffet sighed.

“I never wanted to be leader.  I’m good at keeping things organized if I already know what I’m doing, but if I don’t,” Muffet shrugged.  “It’s stressful, I’m not good at it, and people just get hurt.  It’s better this way.”

Muffet pulled the blanket back over him and began to pick up the tray and the few lollipop wrappers and dishes Stretch had left lying around.  Stretch rolled over and pushed himself up onto his elbows, watching her carefully.  “Safeguards?” he finally asked quietly.

Muffet froze, one hand outstretched to the tray.  She slowly pulled it back to her chest, fingers curled tightly into her palm.

“Years and years ago, monsters moved from the Ruins into Snowdin, Waterfall, and Hotland,” Muffet whispered, speaking at an even, almost sing-songy pace that sounded like she was reciting a story.  “One of the five spider clans went with them.  On the crossing through Snowdin, disaster struck.  Of the fifty who set out, only three made it across alive.  The rest froze to death in the icy snow.”

Muffet gently picked up the tray, hands trembling lightly.  “Our clan, _my_ clan, now numbers ten.  I was expected to find a way bring the other clans across to Hotland, where we could live together in greater prosperity.  The ruins were not well-suited to support so many of us.  People were going hungry, becoming desperate.  I knew this, but I…there was nothing I could do.  When I finally stepped down, the clans took matters into their own hands.”

She stood, holding the tray so tightly that the small muscles in her forearms stood out like cords beneath her skin.

“I don’t know what they tried to do, but it didn’t work.  I do know that within two weeks, every single spider from the ruins had died trying to cross to Hotland, and suddenly we were on the brink of extinction.  I suddenly had a very difficult choice to make, and the ninety-seven little ones that you are carrying are the result.”

Muffet walked to the edge of the web, then hesitated before jumping down to the floor.  “If it makes you feel any better, I’m not sure that I made the right choice.”

===

Stretch had just woken up when Muffet came in the next morning with breakfast.  Scones, muffins, and a puffy little pastry stuffed with herbs and diced snail that Muffet said was a croline. 

“Believe it or not, Croline actually hates these,” Muffet snickered.  “You’re supposed to make them with ham or fish, but that’s so rare down here.”

Stretch tried one, and found that he actually liked it.  More for the filling than for the bread, he was getting absolutely sick of baked goods.  He took small bites, hoping Muffet would go away soon.  That way, he could just eat the filling and leave the crusts without having to do it in front of her.

“Your brother came in again today,” Muffet said casually.

“He did?” Stretch asked, suddenly feeling wide awake.  “When?  How was he? How long did he stay?”

“Around seven o clock this morning.  I went outside to hang the ‘open’ sign on the door and there he was, sitting on the doorstep.  He didn’t stay long, but he looked more worried than before.  Asked me the same questions as last time, though.  ‘Have you seen my bro, do you know where he might have gone, call me if you hear anything,’ that sort of thing.”

Stretch froze, then calmly picked up a scone.  “You know they’re going to find me eventually, right?” he asked casually.  Muffet didn’t even flinch, just looked down at him with a sad smile.

“Probably, yes.  But it’s just two or three more days, love,” she said, then stood up.  “Be a dear and eat before it gets cold, ok?  I’ll be nearby if you need anything.”

With that, she jumped down to the floor and walked out of the room.

“Bro?” Stretch muttered to himself.  Blue didn’t call him ‘bro.’  Brother, Papyrus, Lazybones, occasionally Pappy when he was trying to coax him into something, but never _bro._  

Well, whatever.  Maybe Muffet had just heard wrong, or…

Pfffttt, yeah.  Sure.  She’d heard wrong.  She’d heard wrong, because she hadn’t heard _anything._

Stretch thought back to the first time Muffet had told him Alphys and his brother were about to come rescue him, feeling like beating his head against a wall for being so stupid.  _I imagine they’ll try to get a search warrant for my café when you don’t show up within the next few days_.  Well, it was a few days later, and nobody had come smashing through the door with a search warrant.  Nobody was going to either, because Muffet had been lying the whole damn time.  How could he be so _stupid?!_   She might as well have painted the word gullible on the ceiling, and he’d lapped it right up. 

Stretch pushed the tray away, appetite completely gone.  If Muffet had been lying about Blue visiting, then that meant nobody was looking for him.  He wasn’t going to be rescued, either because everyone thought he was dead or they just didn’t care enough to look two _fucking_ feet behind Muffet’s _fucking_ bar to **_fucking find him_**. 

Stretch laughed softly to himself, shoulders hunched and fingers curled so tightly into his palms that his metacarpals were stinging. He didn’t know why he was surprised.  It wasn’t like he hadn’t known that he was a worthless piece of trash who nobody would bother looking for.  He didn’t know why he felt so choked up about it.

His eyesockets burned as tears welled up behind them, then dripped down his face and to the floor far below.  After a few seconds, he sniffed hard, expression slowly hardening into a glare.  Fine.  If nobody was going to come find him…

Stretch ground his teeth, rolled onto his back, and held a shaking hand over his belly.  Glaring at the space just below his outstretched fingers, he forced his magic to flow.  Anger and frustration roused the thin trickle of power to a boil, giving him just enough fuel to conjure a thin, edged bone with a wicked point.  Breathing hard and fighting back a surge of dizziness, he held the construct steady, then pulled his hoodie up.

His belly had grown to the point where he couldn’t see his feet past the swell of orange pseudo-flesh and eggs.  Dark orange stretch marks were appearing along his sides, and the eggs were…

The tiny souls in the eggs had become bigger, more distinct.  They glowed gently through his translucent abdomen, easily visible through the faint boundaries of their eggs.  Stretch closed his eyes and folded his fingers around the bone knife, slowly bringing it down.  The tip pushed into his belly, making it dimple around the construct.  Down, down…

His fingers tingled, joints feeling loose and weak.  He hesitated, holding the point right at the edge of cutting into himself.  It probably wouldn’t take much, just one quick jerk and it would be over.  It was probably going to hurt a lot, but he could handle it.  He just…he just…

The construct dissolved into a shimmer of dust, leaving his fingers clenched around nothing.  Stretch rolled onto his side, crying into the blanket so hard that the web hammock beneath him swayed back and forth with each, agonized sob.  Maybe it was a delayed sense of self-preservation, maybe the eggs were fucking with his mind, but he couldn’t do it.  He couldn’t even take matters into his own hands and end this, because apparently this was all he was fucking good for these days.  Spreading his legs and crying his goddamn eyes out.

No wonder nobody wanted to save him.

===

The next two days passed in a blur of increasingly exhausted moments.  That odd, sharp ache down the backs of his legs soon became a constant throb, and the stretch marks darkened and spread.  Muffet noticed them and insisted on rubbing him down with something oily that smelled suspiciously like spider spit.  Unfortunately, Stretch fell asleep halfway through arguing with her and woke up to find the unguent already applied and a new pile of lollipops nearby as an apology.

His spine and pelvis ached constantly, but at least the nicotine cravings dipped until they only really bothered him after meals.  He felt listless and drained, never sad or explicitly upset so much as just…numb.  It was really hard to bring himself to care about anything.  In a way, that was almost better.  It was almost like this wasn’t actually happening.      

===

“Mnngh?” Stretch groaned as a deep, insistent itch roused from a blissfully dreamless sleep.  Grimacing, he reached around his belly to press a hand between his legs.  Until now, the vaginal plug had been a slight discomfort, something he only really noticed when Muffet touched him or he moved too quickly.  Now it felt like his entire cunt had decided to reject the damn thing and was expressing its distaste by setting itself on fire.

“Ah-“ he gasped, squirming against his hand.  The movement was making his hips ache, but holy hell it felt unbelievably good when he pushed against the end of the plug.  It tugged lightly at his inner walls and bumped deliciously against the end of his passage, so satisfying it was leaving him breathless and flushed.  He was already so wet…

Stretch’s head arched back, teeth parting and hips twitching as an orgasm rippled through him, soothing his aches and quieting that desperate itching.  He relaxed, panting a little with his hand still cupped loosely between his legs.  There was an odd, but gentle pressure somewhere between the small of his back and the front of his swollen belly, but he didn’t pay much attention to it.  It seemed like he collected a new sensation every minute or so, and not all of them were this benign-

He felt something release deep inside him and a rush of slippery fluid gushed through his fingers.  He gasped as the pressure slowly increased, pushing the eggs hard against the end of his passage for a long moment before it subsided.

 _Oh damn…this is it_ , he thought numbly.  Or was it?  It didn’t hurt nearly as bad as the premature labour had, and the pressure inside him wasn’t all that intense.  Tentatively, he pulled gently on the end of the plug.  It seemed a little looser now, like part of it had come unstuck, but it was still pretty firmly in place.   He let go and wrapped his arms around himself, relaxing by degrees as minutes passed and a second contraction didn’t come.  Well, maybe he’d been mistaken.  Nothing felt any different from before, not really.  Just that odd, insistent pressure deep inside his core that was making him feel so tired…

===

“Pappy?” Someone whispered close to his ear.  “Pappy?!”

Someone was shaking his shoulder.  Stretch blearily opened his eyes and blinked into the dim light.  Gradually, his brother’s rounded face came into view, swimming in and out of focus like a camera with a broken lens.

“’Sup bro?” he asked woozily.  What a nice dream.  Everything looked so fuzzy and soft around the edges that he just wanted to give everything a hug.  Blue looked worried for some reason, but that was ok.  Stretch just needed to tell him how _nice_ everything was and then he’d feel happy too.

“Oh my god, I thought…” Oh no, now his brother was crying!  No, things were _nice_ now, why was he crying?  Stretch tried to lift an arm to pat him on the shoulder, but his arm just flopped weakly at his side.

“Its-ssokay,” Stretch slurred instead, wondering vaguely why his legs felt cold and wet. 

“Oh, stars Pappy, IT IS NOT OK!  I THOUGHT YOU WERE HURT, O-OR WORSE!” Blue howled, lunging in to hug him tightly around his shoulders.  Stretch grunted as discomfort pierced through his sleepy haze, and a hard, rolling pressure began to build in his abdomen, growing slowly to a painful peak and lingering there for a moment before subsiding.  Luckily, Blue quickly pulled back, shock and confusion written across his face as he took in his brother's pained expression.  “Wha-you’re all wet…”

Blue’s eyes dropped to the swell of the blanket covering Stretch’s midsection.

“Brother?” Blue asked, voice oddly high-pitched.  “I’m going to pull this off, ok?” He dipped his fingers below the hem of the blanket, and began to peel the soaked fabric away.

Something yanked Blue backward with an enraged hiss.  Blue yelped, fingers still caught in the blanket as he was thrown aside and leapt on by a furious blur of black and purple.  Stretch moaned unhappily as his legs were uncovered and cold air chilled his lower half.    

“Muffet?!  Muffet whannNNGH?!” Blue choked as Muffet rammed a dishtowel between his teeth and sealed it in place with spider-silk.  Before Blue could process what was happening, she’d tied him down to the webbing floor, wrapping his entire body in a haphazard cocoon.  Stretch stared, shaking with numb fear as Muffet moved over his brother with panicked jerkiness.  Blue only had one HP, and if she decided to bite him, then-

“I told you to stay away,” Muffet snarled into Blue’s terrified face, then bolted over to where Stretch was lying and gathered him up in her arms.  Stretch wailed as she tried to lift him, hunching his shoulders and shaking as a contraction squeezed down on his body.  Muffet’s eyes widened with shocked horror, and she quickly set him back down.

“How long ago did your water break?!” she demanded, voice panicked.  She pushed his legs apart, groaning when she saw heavy strings of slick connecting his femurs to each other.  “Shit.  Stretch?  Love, can you hear me?”

Stretch scrunched up his face and tried to pull away as she gently slapped his cheeks.  Yes, he could fucking hear her, he wasn’t deaf, he was just-

“HNNN **NNNGH**!” Stretch grunted as a harder contraction tried to push the eggs downward.  He could feel them sticking inside him instead of sliding, and wondered numbly whether this was what Muffet had meant by things going badly.

“Fuck,” Muffet snarled, hands pressing into the tensed, rock-hard flesh of his belly.  “You’re dry.”

Stretch recoiled when she roughly thrust two fingers into him and worked them around the plug.

“Ahnnnn-“ Stretch whimpered, inner walls burning as she peeled the obstruction away, then yanked it free.  The relief of finally having his passage clear after days of being plugged up was immediately followed by a terrifyingly powerful contraction that started at the small of his back and moved forward in a blindingly painful cramp.  He might have been screaming, but he was having trouble piecing together what was happening.  He was so exhausted that it was scaring him, because he wasn’t sure that he would wake up again if he fell asleep while this was happening.

“Sweetheart, you have to relax or I won’t be able to help you,” came a muffled voice.  Stretch felt a set of hands press his legs further apart, and wailed in objection as hard fingers began to force themselves inside him.  He arched back, trying to wiggle away as the hand insistently pushed itself deeper.

“Thank the angel, you’re dilated,” the muffled voice said.  Stretch panted, trembling at the uncomfortably tight stretch of his passage around Muffet's hand.  Sweat ran into his eyesockets, making them sting.  “Ok, we’ve got to get the little ones out fast or they’re going to suffocate.  On the next contraction, try to-“

The voice broke off with a yelp as Stretch screamed, entire abdomen tightening more than he’d thought possible.  The voice swore, fingers twisted inside him, and with a wet squelch, something slipped free of his body.  Stretch wheezed, eyesockets flickering open and arms flopping weakly at his sides.  He gazed dimly down at himself, trying to will the room to stop spinning.  Muffet was sitting between his legs, keeping his knees parted with her lower-most set of hands.  The others were very carefully lowering a fist-sized egg onto the wet, slimy quilt that had been tucked under his pelvis.  As he watched, the little soul brightened, consuming the substance of the egg before darkening and swelling outward into the form of an infant spider monster.  The baby gasped, tiny fangs glinting as it gave an outraged howl, face scrunched up against its new, uncomfortably cold and bright environment.  It looked shockingly like Muffet, right down to the soft, black fuzz on its head and the perfect circle of eyes, so small that it could have comfortably fit in the palm of Stretch’s hand.

“Hello,” Muffet whispered, one set of fingers rubbing soothing circles into the infant’s back as it wailed.  “There you are…shhh, you’re ok, I’ve got you.  I've got you.”

Another contraction ripped through Stretch’s abdomen and he shrieked, losing any awareness of what happening outside his agonized body.  The contractions started coming faster and lasting longer, pushing him closer to the edge of complete exhaustion than he'd thought possible.  He distantly heard a door smash open below him, heard angry, shocked voices yelling back and forth to each other.  Someone started rubbing his shoulder and wiping the sweat away from his forehead.  They were murmuring something to him, but he couldn’t make out the words.

After what seemed like an eternity, he felt his abdomen clench for the last time, then dissolve into a little shower of spent magic.  He collapsed, gasping for breath as endorphins filled him with a warm, light feeling that was close to contentment.  With a start, he realized that he wasn’t cold for the first time in days. Magic hummed through his body, weak and almost depleted, but no longer being siphoned off to fuel the development of close to a hundred monsters.  It felt amazing.

Woozily, he looked up, struggling to focus.  Captain Alphys and his brother were sitting by his sides, staring down at him with a mixture of pity, horror, and in Blue’s case, nausea.  Muffet was still kneeling between his legs, hands gently moving over the mewling infants held safely on the soiled quilt.  She looked up when she noticed Stretch staring, and gave him a small, sad smile.

Stretch blinked, sure that his eyes were playing tricks on him.  Muffet was…aging?  Tiny lines were slowly creeping around the corners of her eyes and across her forehead, deepening and sagging as her skin lost its elasticity.  Her angular face became pinched, mouth hollow and eyes sunken.  Her arms became thin and bony, clothes hanging off of her body like she was made of nothing more than a handful of brittle twigs.  She swayed where she sat, and suddenly, Stretch realized why her smiles had always been so sad. 

Monsters aged as their children grew, giving up their magical lifeblood to fuel the new generation.  Muffet was now a parent to ninety-seven monsters, and the strain was rapidly taking its toll.

“Thank you,” she whispered, then her eyes rolled up to the top of her head and she fell backward, body dissolving into dust before it hit the floor.

Alphys was demanding something from him in her low, strident voice, but Stretch couldn’t hear her.  There was a loud, rushing sound that seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere, and the entire room was spinning.  Too much to process, too much to think about, too much…

 

_Afterward_

 

It took Stretch weeks to physically recover.  He did better once the doctors let him go home.  Being touched by anyone made his chest feel so tight he couldn't breathe, and the thought of being looked at and examined by a stranger was too terrifying to imagine.  Blue, at least, was willing to talk him through washing himself and keeping up with his new medications, coaxing him to eat with unending patience and respecting his boundaries without question.  Little by little, that awful tightness eased.  He didn’t think that it would ever completely go away.  It was hard enough to leave the house without wanting to break into tears and run back inside to hide.  The thought of actually _being_ with someone left him breathless, trembling, and so scared that he wanted to cry.  But this, at least, was a start.

He found out later that the ten remaining members of Muffet’s clan had died as the newborns took their place in the world, which implied that all of them had been parents to the ninety-seven infant spiderlings in some capacity.  Spiders were no longer on the brink of extinction, but their entire race was now less than a year old.  Queen Toriel had arranged caregivers for the babies, ensuring that their needs were being met despite their horrific entrance into the world.  Stretch wasn’t sure how he felt about that.  They weren’t _his_ children.  He had no responsibility or obligation to them, but for some reason, the mental image of that tiny, perfect infant was stuck in his head. 

Well, like a lot of things, it was better to just not think about it.

===

Stretch limped through the house, hands pressed to the back of his illium to ease the residual ache in his lower vertebrae.  A month later, and he was still sore.  Meh, at least he could walk again.  He hadn’t realized how much not being able to move had bothered him before.  For all Blue would moan and complain that he was lazy, Stretch actually did do a lot of walking.  Being confined to the house, even though it felt safer than going out, was definitely starting to wear on him.

Feeling bored, he walked through the kitchen, opening drawers and cupboards in hopes of finding a forgotten box of cigarettes.  Of all the things he could gripe at his brother for, not letting him smoke was pretty high on the list.  He could understand why, since it was contraindicated on at least half of the medications that the doctors currently had him on, but it still sucked.

He looked through all the usual places, then came to the extra-tall cupboard under the sink that his brother had modified so that he could fit more bones underneath it.  Stretch seriously doubted that this one would have anything he wanted inside it, but there was no harm in trying.  He carefully opened the door, half expecting to be immediately buried under an avalanche of bone attacks.  Instead there was…

Nothing?

Stretch opened the door further, frowning in confusion.  The cupboard had been completely cleared out, leaving nothing but a small, white dog happily sleeping in one corner and a laundry basket full of envelopes in the center.  Curious, Stretch picked one up and turned it over.

Tak too Papyrusses Hous at Snodinn, it said in a messy, childish scrawl.

Feeling numb, Stretch opened the envelope, and pulled out the single sheet of paper that had been clumsily folded and stuffed inside.  It was a crayon drawing showing a pair of stick figures, a little one with a purple, triangle dress and six arms, and a big one with a bright orange sweater.  The stick figures were holding hands, and little inverted hearts had been drawn all around them, coloured in bright shades of purple and orange.

He heard the door open behind him, then a quiet, cheerful humming as Blue walked into the kitchen.

“Oh! Brother, you’re out of bed! How are you…” Blue trailed off when he saw what Stretch was looking at.  “Oh.  You...you found them." he twisted his scarf, looking down at the floor.  "I’m sorry, I was going to show you those when…when you felt better. I wasn't trying to hide them, I promise."

“It’s ok,” Stretch said quietly, looking down at the drawing.

There was a long, awkward silence.

“They all want to see you,” Blue finally said.  “They’re curious about you.  If you want, they’d love to visit sometime.  If you feel up to it?”

Stretch’s hand trembled, and he gently set the drawing back on the pile of envelopes.  God, there were hundreds of them.  He guessed that there would be.  Ninety-seven kids could make a whole hell of a lot of drawings.

“Not yet,” Stretch whispered, limping out of the kitchen.  He felt absurdly glad when Blue didn’t press the issue. 

No, definitely not yet.  Maybe even not ever, it was still much too soon for him to think about the result of what Muffet had done, regardless of her motivations.  Too soon, and too much to process.

But he would think about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOLY HELL IT'S DONE. *immediately collapses for a well-earned nap*
> 
> It didn't manage to work its way into the story, but Muffet was the only member of the clan who was physically capable of having that many children. The other spider monsters could manage four or five at most, but Muffet, as the natural-born clan leader, had both the magical reserves and physiology necessary to support ninety-seven infants long enough to bring them into the world.
> 
> And yes, implied massive spider orgy was intentionally implied. There's a reason why Muffet hates most of her clan members. If people are curious, I might do a one-shot of that later. 
> 
> And as with all things of this nature, interesting motives, still wrong. Everything Muffet did was horrible and unethical, and I'm not attempting to justify any of it. Ends do not justify the means.
> 
> As always comment away, I'd love to hear what you thought! Thanks for reading ^_^

**Author's Note:**

> NOOOO!!! THE MUTANT PLOT BUNNIES HAVE MULTIPLIED!! Seriously should have put this one up for adoption, but hnnngh, I WANTED TO DO THIS ONE, OK??? 3 parts at most? *Ravvi says without having any real idea how long this terrible thing is going to be*


End file.
